Mostly covers 15mm Flames of War stuff, but also covers other oddments as well.

Friday, 29 April 2016

What can I do with Open Fire?

Hi,
Today I'd like to look at the Open Fire Starter Set and look at how you can use it to start playing Flames of War. Since I bought my copy, Battlefront has re-released Open Fire, which is a mixed blessing.

The good news is you now get the new plastic Stugs (with the different mantlets and StuH option) and Sherman sprues (which are now much easier to assemble and comes with the ability to make either a Firefly Vc or Sherman V from each sprue). These greatly add to the flexibility of the set.

The bad news is that you no longer get the full rule book and now get the simplified Open Fire Rules. As a starter therefore I recommend you pick up a copy of either the small or large Rulebook, this is often cheap on Ebay. After all there's no real point to playing the the game but not knowing the rules is there?

So with apologies for the wall of text, lets look at what's in the box.

Germans

The German Grenadiers are probably the most flexible force in the box, with the obvious force being a Grenadier Company. These feature in nearly all the theatre books, meaning you'll always have a force even if you are playing in a themed event, although you may have to change a unit or two. There are a few ways to build on what you get out of the box, but I'd recommend a blister each of Pak 40s, Nebelwerfers, Mortars and HMGs. This will give you a large platoon of Pak 40s and a platoon each of Nebelwerfers, Mortars or Infantry Guns and Heavy Machine Guns. These can be fielded in nearly every list, and are fairly cheap, so are good choices to keep the cost down. You may find some of these units going cheap on Ebay (other internet auction sites are available).

There are several different variants available, all with different options and support units. The list below is from Grey Wolf and covers Grenadiers on the Eastern Front in 1944. This is a flexible force, with two templates so you can drop a smoke and a normal bombardment in the same turn. I would combat attach the HMGs to the Grenadier platoons in most circumstances, however there may be some cases where you may wish to kampfgruppe 2 Machine guns into a platoon with the 2iC and have 8 platoons for deployment.

Bridge by Bridge provides a list to cover the Grenadiers who fought in Market Garden, however these do not get access to Nebelwerfers. Instead you'll have to try and find a 15cm German Artillery battery box set which are currently hard to find. However this can be built in a similar manner as before.

German Grenadier(85 Infanteriedivision)Infantry Company, from Bridge by Bridge, page 38

Right, in addition to the grenadier forces, there are many variants you can build from the Grenadier list, for example the Volksgrenadier list from Nuts. The list below requires an Assault Rifle Platoon (which would give you all the figures you need to make the 5 assault rifle stands needed), a HMG platoon, a Nebelwerfer 10.5cm NbW41 platoon blister and two Pak 40 Blisters or the Winter Pak 40 platoon (or ebay four more Open Fire guns). Your will need to make a Staff team using a medium base and lots of kneeling down soldiers (model a map on the base for them to be consulting). One thing to note about starting with the Volksgrenadiers is that they start to get unique kit as the Germans, so a lot of their units (like infantry guns) do not backdate well into earlier periods.

Another rarer option is the Sturmkompanie from Grey Wolf. People are unlikely to notice the missing extra MG teams or panzerfausts, however if you are pedantic, Peter Pig do packs of both MG42 teams and extra panzerfaust you could use, or you could pick up some extra Open Fire sprues on Ebay. You will also need a Mortar Platoon blister, 15cm sIG33 infantry gun blister (also a good option for normal Grenadiers) and a Nebelwerfer 10.5cm NbW41 platoon blister. The 78. Sturmdivision were a specialist assault grenadier division, and had access to plenty of anti-armour weapons to stop soviet tanks. This is very much an anti-armour force, with the Pak 40s able to combat attach to the Sturm Platoons, and lots of Panzerfausts. The 3 bombardments and the fact that the infantry are MG teams makes the company good vs infantry as well.

The Reichsgrenadier company from Fortress Italy are the 44. Grenadier Division reforming in Italy after being destroyed at Stalingrad. When the allies invaded the newly rebuilt division was committed to the fighting on the Gothic line. They are only rated as trained, but have several unique options available to them including some captured Italian equipment issued to them as they headed towards the front. I've added Marder III Hs in this case, but they have the option to take Italian Semovente's in this slot. This list is our usual list with the addition of a Plastic Soldier Company Panzer 38(t) box to make the Marders, and a 7.5cm leFH18 infantry gun blister to add the infantry gun platoon and bring the list up to an assumed 1420pt limit. This list could quite easily translate into a Grey Wolf list if desired, hence why I've not taken all the funky Semoventes.

More exotic lists which could be made using the parts of the Open Fire set would include Panzergrenadiers. Like the Sturmkompanie, people are unlikely to notice the missing extra MG teams but you can add them if you wish. The following force can be taken from Grey Wolf or Atlantik Wall. It can also be taken from Eastern Front to translate into Mid-war if needed. It requires you to add a Nebelwerfer 10.5cm NbW41 platoon blister, a Pak 40 blister (or ebay two more Open Fire guns) and a Plastic Soldier Company Sd Kfz 250 boxed set.

On to the even more unique, the Führer Grenadierkompanie are a digital exclusive force and were part of the Führer Begliet Brigade, a force based around Hitler's personal bodyguard battalion. The grenadiers were older Landsturm home defence troops who were attached to the brigade to bring it up to combat strength. These were first committed in the Battle of the Bulge and fought until the end of the war as bicycle mounted infantry. Here is a simple starting list just using the contents of Open Fire.

The Grenadiers could also be fielded as a Luftwaffe Jagerkompanie from Atlantik Wall or Fortress Italy. These are poor troops (Reluctant Trained), but cheap, which allows them to get plenty of troops in a list! The list below is a replica of the Grenadier Kompanie from earlier. The main difference is in the paint scheme, the Luftwaffe troops had blue-gray uniforms and often wore 'splinter' camoflage jackets.

The Sperrverband from Grey Wolf and the Digital Finland Grenadier lists offer more exotic options, both in the form of unique units (Veteran Tank Hunters or older equipment), or ratings (Sperrverband are Reluctant. If you're interested I recommend taking a closer look at them in the Forces App.

Open Fire could even be used as the basis of a RSI list, although the troops are not quite right, and you can't field both the Pak 40s and the Stugs in the same list as they occupy the force organisation chart slot.

British

The British Armoured company at first seems a little inflexible with just two types of units, but add a box of 5 Shermans, a recce unit (like a blister of Universal Carriers) and either a Heavy Mortar platoon blister or the Field Battery, Royal Artillery box set, and you get a useable force. The Mortars are slightly cheaper and shorter ranged but slightly better vs infantry, 25 pounders are longer ranged and better vs tanks. Recce is much more open and either Stuarts, Armoured Cars or Universals Carriers are good options. As a start I'd tend towards the Universal Carriers as they are the cheapest in both points and money, and are usable in the most lists which gives you flexibility to play around a bit. With thes additions, it's easy to build a fairly solid force as you can see below.

The addition of a second box of Shermans would give you 4 platoons of 4 tanks, and 2 HQ tanks, which would give you a solid trained list for late war at the expense of the US Paratrooper platoon (which could be sold to provide some funds).

Other variants on this list would include a Market Garden Lorried Rifle Company. This would be a cheap way to start playing, needing just a British Rifle Company box. This force would be best expanded with a unit of Universal Carriers and an artillery unit.

Moving back towards other British Tank units, the Polish Armoured Division digital breifing gives you the option to take Polish Fearless Trained tanks. Sadly the next few lists involve dropping the US Paratroopers as they are not available as options. Unless you also want a US Paratrooper company, I'd recommend selling or trading the US Paras for something more useful.

An interesting twist force would be to use the M4A4s for the Free French of the 2nd Armoured Division Blindee. To field this you'll need a Cavalry Recon Patrol Blister, an M8 Greyhound Blister, a US Armoured Rifle Platoon Box set and the 2 tank boxes of Sherman M4A4 and Sherman M4A3

Another option is to build all the Shermans as 75mm Shermans and add M4A2 Lend Lease 76mm Sherman box and blister for an Italy Armoured Company from Road to Rome. For this you'll need a M4A1 (76) Platoon Box set, a Sherman Firefly IC or VC blister, and a Universal Carrier Patrol blister

The US Parachute can be support for British Armour or a company in their own right. A legal small force can be made by adding a Parachute Rifle company box set. Using the Market Garden list and combining this with the 2 Tank Platoons in the box and and armoured jeep platoon using the Intelligence & Recon Platoon blister, would give you the force below.

Further upgrades would include some sort of artillery to drop smoke (Mortars, or Glider 105mm guns would be my choice), and anti-tank or AA guns. If you are collecting a Market Garden force, you can make use of other British Armoured units using the Market Garden list such as Field Batteries and Bofors Guns.

One other variant US force you might like to consider is the Glider Rifles from Market Garden. Making use of the plastic US Rifle Company Box and the Intelligence & Recon Platoon blister in addition to Open Fire you can make the following list:

If you go this way, you'll probably like to expand with anti-tank guns and the 105mm Glider Artillery.

Other Bits

The dice, card tokens and objectives are all useful to a starting player as you will need all three. If you are a modelling guru, you may wish to use spare figures and vehicles to model an objective on the card markers, the more lazy can just buy a pre-modelled objective!

Card Terrain while a good start it does lack a third dimension. A simple fix is to add trees onto Bases, then place the trees on the card templates. If you wish to add more detail these templates can later be painted brown and flocked to match the terrain. You can add card walls or pan scourer/clump foilage for hedgerows to the card walls bases. Buildings I recommend buying, these can be bought unpainted fairly cheaply, or pre-painted for a bit more. Finally the Plastic doodlebug can by painted and also used as a terrain piece.

What if I Bought Two Sets?

The Open fire sets are a fairly cost effective way to get lots of models. A cunning idea would therefore be to make the most of this discount and buy two boxes. Alternatively, there is also the cunning trick of swapping models with a friend, you each buy an Open Fire set with one person taking all the Axis Troops and one taking all the Allies. What would that give us for our starting forces?

For the Grenadier company, you would then get a full HQ with 2 Panzerschrecks, a 4 strong Pak 40 platoon, 3 Platoons of Grenadiers and a Scout platoon. You would be left with 3 spare command teams and 2 infantry teams, but these can be kept as spares at the moment. Its wise to start a bits box for these sorts of thing as they can often come in useful, if you acquire a unit second hand missing a team, or buy some guns from someone who isn't Battlefront. You also get 6 Stugs which could be assembled in a variety of ways. 5 Stugs and 1 StuH would allow you to cover most options with some flexibility, either a platoon with up to 5 Stugs (like a Panzer platoon), or a platoon of 3 Stugs and another of 2 Stugs and a StuH. 3 Stugs and 3 StuH also a good balance however, allowing you to field a platoon of 3 Stugs, 3 StuHs or 2 Stugs and a StuH. Good additions to this would be the Nebelwerfers, Infantry guns, Mortars and HMGs mentioned before, you may also like to consider another box of Battlefront Stugs, which would allow you to field a lot of StuG support, or field a StuH company. They come in 2 or 5s so you can tweak this depending on which direction you wish to go in. If you only want one platoon of Stugs in a list, another sound investment would be a box of Plastic Soldier Company Panzer 38(t) which would give you the bits to make 4 Marder III Hs. These are a useful addition to your force, and a good option in place of the Stugs. In addition to expanding the companies mentioned before, these sorts of investments would give you the forces below.

The Walkure Company is another Grey Wolf Digital list with the Grenadiers rated as Confident Trained. The Walkure battalions were German Grenadier units assigned for home defence and internal security with no divisional support. After Operation Bagaration destroyed the German Army Group Centre, they were deployed to the Eastern Front as self-contained reinforcement regiment. They were then attached to reforming divisions to quickly bolster their strength and return them to the fight. This is another list which could be built easily using two copies of Open Fire, a HMG Platoon, a Mortar platoon and a Plastic Soldier Company Pak 40 and Raupenschlepper box set.

For the US Paras, the additional set gives you your second platoon, but not much else. As such, I'd only recommend getting the second set if you intend to use either (or both) the German Grenadier or the British Armoured companies as well. Otherwise it's cheaper for you to just buy the second platoon seperately. If you have one or two friends who are interested in playing, sharing 2 or 3 sets might not be a bad plan.

A second Open Fire Set gives you all 4 armoured platoons for a British Armoured Company. Just add a Sherman box for the HQ (2 or 5, depending on whether you want the option for the additional HQ tanks and OP sherman) plus a Recce option and either a Heavy Mortar platoon or the Field Battery, Royal Artillery box set. This makes it easier to build all the lists shown before. You can either use the spare US Parachute platoon as extra teams in the one platoon you can field in your force, as the start of a new US Parachute company or you may wish to sell or trade the spare platoon.

Conclusion

So as you can see the Open Fire set is useful starting point if you wish to play German Infantry, British Shermans or US Airborne forces (I now have all three!), and hopefully this run through has given you plenty of ideas on how you could use these forces.

But what if you fancy something different? It has been suggested that you can use the Shermans for a US Armoured company, however the Sherman model used (the M4A4) was only used by Lend Lease countries (Mostly the British and French). It also has a noticably longer engine deck than the other Sherman models, so I don't recommend you buy the set if you want to field US armour. Luckily both Battlefront and Plastic Soldier do plastic starting army boxes, and I hope to cover starting playing Flames of War using those in a future article, so watch this space!